Rival cycle: Beats Music VP of product reportedly headed to Spotify

It looks like Beats Music's uphill battle to upstage the incumbent streaming services just took a hit. CNET reports that Fredric Vinna, product lead and one of the outfit's early creators (alongside Trent Reznor et al.) back in 2011, is on his way to one of its biggest rivals: Spotify. The departure comes a little over a month after the launch of Beats Music and is breaking on the heels of the acquisition of Topspin -- whose ArtistLink service is embedded inside both streaming options for merch and ticket sales. Artist Tools in Beats Music are also built using the Topspin's platform, and the duo should bring even more artist-to-listener interaction as the service looks to further differentiate itself. However, now it's in need of a new captain to take the product reigns.

Beats Music declined to comment on the matter when we reached out. We've contacted Spotify as well and we'll be sure to update this post when we hear back.